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Twitter ye not
Saturday 25th April 2009, 12:30PM BST.
Two very different people hit the headlines this week – but both have one thing in common: the internet, writes Andrew Owen.
On Thursday, Shrewsbury’s Michael Hughes found himself in court after attempting to drive from Shrewsbury to Telford in 10 minutes. In doing so he hit speeds of more than 100mph on the A5 at Emstrey and the M54 at Junction Six.
How do we know this? Simple: the 18-year-old’s drive was filmed and put on YouTube.
Then, magistrate Professor Steve Molyneux found himself on the front page of the Shropshire Star, and as the lead story on this very website, for posting details of the court cases he was dealing with on the Twitter social networking site.
A fellow magistrate discovered the Twitterings and made a complaint.
Prof Molyneux resigned, even though he said he never divulged any details that were not already in the public domain and had therefore done nothing wrong.
Afterwards he said he was simply trying to use the internet to explain the role of the magistrate. “I hoped that by Tweeting people would see that justice was being done,” he added.
“I believe that everyone overreacted.”
The interesting fact is that both cases simply wouldn’t have happened just a few years ago.
As Mr Phil Mason, who prosecuted Michael Hughes for careless driving, put it in court: “Mr Hughes was caught because of the modern age.”
This is true. If YouTube hadn’t existed would Hughes have wound up in court? Indeed, would he have attempted the drive in the first place?
And would Prof Molyneux still be dealing with magistrates court cases, as he had done for 16 years, if Twitter hadn’t been invented? Probably.
It just goes to show that for some people the benefits of new technology can be outweighed by unintended consequences.
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My name is Chris, I’m 19 and I live in Telford and I am shocked and appalled.
Not that a man would broadcast things said in public court over the internet but that a veteran magistrate of 16 years has been put in a position where he has felt it is required for him to resign because he is perpetuating information ALREADY IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN!
I would like to also express my disappointment at Prof Molyneux for backing down on this when all he was doing was providing a level of transparency to court proceedings and actually giving up a 16 year career over doing something that is both of interest to local people, if rolled out on a large scale, is of great interest to the general public and that provides a level of transparency that we could not have had 5 years ago but that the public more than deserves!
If every time someone with any form of power to make a change in the way the world works backs down at the first bump in the road even when they are doing something everyone can see is agreeable and beneficial then how the hell are we supposed to progress anywhere?!
I am not sure whether to applaud or boo Prof Molyneux for doing this in the first place or for backing down on what could have been a small step in the right direction.
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The professor has brought the authority of the court into disrepute by failing to recognise that magistrates should be seen and not heard; excusing oneself by pleading that what happens in courts is in the public domain may be acceptable to the public, but the magistrates are no longer members of the public when they sit in judgement, but part of the court.
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This silly JP is fortunate not to be prosecuted under Sec 2(1) of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 which makes it an offence punshable by fine or imprisonment for publishing anything that creates a substantial risk that the course of justice in a potential jury trial will be seriously prejudiced. Revealing previous convictions of a Defendant as he is alleged to have done is particularly serious.How would your 75% of Twits like it if they were about to appear before a jury on a serious charge and a Magistrate involved in the preliminary hearings revealed to potential jurors that they had previous convictions? He may yet be prosecuted by the Attorney General and it relflects badly on the training given to Shropshire Magistrates t hat he was apparently ignorant of the Contempt laws.
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